Exodus Communications
More info
- Creator
- K.B. Chandrasekhar, B.V. Jagadeesh
- Released
- 1994–2001
- Type
- Data centres and hosting
The dot-com era's biggest data-centre operator, where half of Silicon Valley rented rack space — and which went bust when its tenants did.
K.B. Chandrasekhar and B.V. Jagadeesh founded Exodus in 1994 as an ISP, but soon switched to building data centres where companies could park their servers with power, cooling and fat pipes. The customers were the big names of the day, and Google's first servers of its own sat in a cage at Exodus in Santa Clara. In 2000 it bought GlobalCenter from Global Crossing and was, on paper, worth tens of billions of dollars.
The model assumed the customers would keep growing. When the dot-coms went under instead, Exodus was left with expensive halls and unpaid invoices, and in September 2001 it filed for bankruptcy protection. Cable & Wireless bought what was left — the same buyer that took over Digital Island that year.